Finally broke through to a MAGA friend

So this was someone I knew long before Trump, but then he got swept up in MAGA. He got into it from the Elon-tech bro side. And I finally got him to come around, after maybe a year of snipping at each other. Here’s how it went:

Friend: you gotta break stuff to make progress. That’s how you find the waste.

Me: And that’s an effective policy for some things. It’s logical, and he did it at Twitter. But why did he buy Twitter?

Friend: Because Elon needed a megaphone.

Me: Exactly. He did it to get a megaphone. And bis strategy was incredibly effective for him achieving his endstate. But was it good for the Twitter employees?

Friend: well, no. Most were fired.

Me: was it good for Twitter’s value?

Friend: no, not really.

Me: and was it good for Twitter users?

Friend: eh, not really.

Me: So Elon what Elon did was incredibly effective for what he wanted. But the users, employees, and Twitter itself were all worse for it.

Friend: Yea, that’s fair.

Me: And just like you said, Elon’s now doing exactly the same thing, but to the federal government.

Friend: oh shit.

TLDR: the way to fix this is not to ostracize Trump supporters, but instead to integrate them back as people you know. If we could all help 1 person each see reality, this will be over far sooner. But appeal to the person, not by attacking their identity, but by supporting them to realize what’s happening.